AS Evaluation- Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

AS Evaluation- Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task,what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Before filming the final sequence, my group performed a preliminary task to make ourselves aware of the different equipment we would be using in the final stages. This included the use of a camera, tripod and the actual editing software. From this, my group gained a larger insight on the equipment being used. This will make filming run smoothly and as a group, the production stage would be stress free.

The overall purpose of this task was to learn how to use the different equipment correctly. I needed to learn how to use a camera, to film frames that would be used correctly. The use of a tripod needed to be practised, as I didn't want frames such as midshots or closeups to appear shaky. After filming this, I also learned how to use Fincalm Cut Pro X. This was helpful, as editing would take less time and everybody in the group would have some knowledge on how to use it. 

The preliminary task can be viewed here

The preliminary task was extremely helpful. As well as learning how to use the the camera, tripod and editing software, I learned how to perform different angles/shots correctly which was an important skill to learn for when filming occured. This task helped me with creating my thriller as skills that I would have found difficult beforehand, had been practised. From doing this task, filming ran smoothly and quickly as we did not have to figure out how to use the equipment by ourselves. I could have easily used the equipment incorrectly when filming the final sequence if I hadn't performed this task, beforehand. Fundamentally, this task was very rewarding as each group member had an understanding of the equipment and camera angles that would be used when filming and editing the final sequence. I believe that taking part in this task helped make my overall sequence a success.

AS Evaluation- Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

AS Evalutation- Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience? 

Final thriller

Here is my final opening sequence:

AS Evaluation- Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My thriller production contains a range of different characters that can challenge and represent social groups. Linking to this, characters used show an obvious representation of good vs bad. The main character/killer is a bride. As she is a woman, her power is highlighted to the audience as typically, a man is the killer. This character represents negativity and the problems surrounding the ruined event. She is a stereotypical bride as she is seeking revenge on her groom, the fact she is wearing white goes against a typical convention. Her hair and make up is messy, contrasting to the typical conventions of brides being clean cut. She is a stereotypical killer as in other productions, they hold a back story. This engages the audience with the narrative and characters used, and appeal to the audience as she is a powerful woman killer, which is unseen within typical thriller films.

The main victim is a groom, that left the bride on the wedding. He represents the bride's main problem and plays the role of the victim. He is stereotypical as ultimately, he needs to pay a price for his wrong decisions, this causes him to become the main target. He is emotionally stronger than the killer. Keeping this in mind, he also challenges stereotypes as he isn't a blonde female. I decided to do this because the victim is strong and his gender is highlighted. The fact the female killer goes against a male, makes her seem more brutal and aggressive to the audience. 

These characters were included to make a stronger narrative. These characters have elements that are stereotypical, making them appeal to social groups. This creates a wider audience that engage with these added characters. Male and female social groups are also challenged within this sequence as gender isn't represented in a stereotypical way. This is because a woman is the killer and a man is the victim. This is reversed in other thriller productions. However, this appeals to a wider audience as the characters represent a certain uniqueness. Female social groups would prefer to watch this thriller because of the use of different characters. This idea contrasts to the stereotype of women disliking thriller films. Consequently, my thriller production would appeal to both male and female social groups.

AS Evaluation- Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

My final narrative includes a couple that are about to get married, however the man abandons his fiance on their wedding day and starts a new life. The bride doesn't deal with this situation well and her mental state deteriorates. She decides to blame all the guests and his family and sets out to murder them. Her identity is unknown to them as she wears a veil and wedding dress. This creates suspense and shock, as the audience is unaware of her identity, too. 

Before making my sequence, I researched the codes and conventions used within other thrillers. Many films need to contain specific codes and conventions that make them typical of the thriller genre. Examples of this include cinematography, mise en scene, setting, iconography, sound and editing. An example of a film that I took inspiration from is 'The Shinning'. This film is an extremely popular thriller film and contains the typical shock/surprise/suspense elements. Previously, I have analysed the well known 'Here's Johnny' scene and identified that it contained many different micro elements that are typically seen within thriller productions. 

The first example that I found is that the room was low lit showing the negativity and lack of hope, making the audience feel empathy for the character that cannot escape. Low key lighting is conventionally used in thrillers to create the sense of an enigma and to incise the audience. The atmosphere is immediately tense, causing the audience to feel suspense and on edge for what is to come. 

The scene from 'The Shinning' also uses iconography, as an ax is used as a dangerous weapon, slashing through the door, which contrasts to the vulnerable female victim. The large ax tears through the door easily, showing the power and brutal actions of the weapon. A woman is typically used as a victim within thriller films to show the female stereotype of vulnerability and innocence, therefore the audience feel empathy for her. 

This also links to mise en scene and the positioning of characters element as the victim is placed behind a towering door. This further causes the audience to feel empathy for her, and care for her safety. 

My opening sequence is successful to the thriller genre as many conventional micro elements are used as I followed the generic conventions. This includes the use of cinematography. Below are examples of shots that I used within my opening sequence.

Here, a panning shot is used to introduce the dark setting. This causes suspense as the panning shot shows the setting and then the killer sat on the bed, last. The audience are introduced to the setting, causing them to engage with the narrative. This shot shows the ruined event, and how devastated the bride/killer is by the situation. The use of iconography is shown through this panning shot, making the frame more believable. The atmosphere caused by this shot is eerie and tense, as the killer's room/shrine is revealed to the audience, showing her negative mindset.

In some points within the sequence, POV shots are used in flashbacks. This causes the frames to look more real and the audience are part of the action. The use of POV further makes the frames look personal and that they have actually happened. This type of camera work is used in films such as Paranormal Activty, to make the production seem real. This scares the audience as they are confused and are unaware if the situation is real or not. 

I believed that extreme close ups should be used within my production. This is because, if used on characters, the audience are engaged as this technique can show a character's emotion. I used this shot when showing the bride/killer's facial features. We see from this that her make up is mess up and she is not a conventional bride. Her emotions are negative, and through the eye, the audience can see deep into her soul. The audience sympathise with her, as she is emotional over a ruined, negative event that happened to her. Fundamentally, this shot shows how sinister the killer can be as she is ready to murder those around her.

Aswell as this, low key lighting is used within my sequence. Low key lighting is conventionally used in thriller productions to create an enigma and suspense. The audience feel uneasy from the use of low key lighting as the audience is unaware of characters hiding in the background. Low key lighting is used in many scenes of my thriller. An example below includes the image below. As the main victim walks up the stairs, the killer is waiting for him, both he and the audience are unaware of this. However, the audience can guess that something negative is approaching because of the use of low key lighting.

Positioning of characters is shown especially in the ending. This is used successfully at the end scene when the bride/killer faces her main victim. The audience are unaware of what will happen after this. Over this, a loud sound effect is used to surprise the audience. I believe that the use of this causes a positive end effect, as the audience would want to keep watching from the intriguing ending. In this scene also, iconography is used as the killer holds a knife. This causes her to seem more sinister, contrasting with her gender. Fundamentally, all of these elements causes the bride to become a conventional killer, terrifying the audience further. 

Make up and costume, an element of mise en scene, is also included within my opening sequence. I believed that this was extremely important to focus on as, characters become more believable causing the sequence to become successful. Costume and make up are highly focused on within successful thriller films as the characters need to be believable. Overall, victims need to be portrayed to the audience to show innocence, such as a blonde female that is typically used. And killers need to be portrayed evidently also, for example, wearing black and hiding in the shadows, usually masked to hide there face, making their identity unknown. The killer in my sequence wears a crumpled wedding dress, showing that she is still obsessed with the event that never happened. She hides her identity with the veil over her face, creeping up on her victims, scaring the audience also. The make up she wears is ruined and her hair is a mess, showing her mental state and deranged mind. The audience feel empathy for her however, the killer terrifies them also as the costume and makeup cause her too look creepy and shows her negative mindset, showing her craziness can result in murder. 

Following this, the representation of characters is also explored within my opening sequence. Whether a villain or victim, characters are always represented effectively within successful thriller films to make a character/audience connection, therefore audience members bond with victims and care about their safety and then become afraid of killers, fearing what they will do next. The killer within my narrative is a bride with a deteriorating mental state and is affected by her wedding that didn't take place. She challenges other conventional killers as she is a female, highlighting her power and brutal nature. Women are conventionally used as victims therefore, using a female as a killer creates a wider audience and overall makes the character more interesting and creates a whole new representation of a killer. Contributing to this, a male plays the main victim. This too challenges the conventional thriller aspects as the female killer targets a male victim therefore she dominant and and shows a huge amount of strength, contrasting with her mental state. This terrifies the audience as she is stronger and powerful compared to a male victim, therefore the audience can empathise with him and become afraid of the female killer. This links to my analysed narrative theory as my narrative fits Erving Goffman's theory as he suggests there are four main characters within his own theory. This includes the protagonist, the main leading character. In my case, the female killer that leads the audience through the narrative. The deuteragonist, the second most important character in my case, he male victim whom the killer targets through out. The bit player is a character of less importance who within my sequence is the bridesmaid/new wife. She becomes important at the end of the sequence as she marries the male victim, who the bride killer was in love with. Lastly, a fool who isn't serious and uses humorous elements to communicate. Within my opening sequence, the groom's friends play the fool(s) as they make jokes and are unaware of what is to come (the bride murders them all). This theory is used within many successful thrillers thus, I decided to use this theory for my narrative to represent characters. 

My media product has been created from ideas that each of the group members had from research from other successful media productions. From a range od ideas that had been taken from other films, my sequence challenges the forms and conventions used. My thriller sequence contains a high amount of suspense and a sense of enigma, as my sequence engages the audience from adding these elements into the narrative. My chosen narrative is also extremely unique and had not been seen before within other thriller productions. The storyline is based around a ruined wedding and the bride's deteriorating mental state. Therefore, my narrative also contains a pyschological theme, causing audience members that are intreseted in subplots to watch it. As well as this, the protagonist/killer is a unique character and challenges other killers. This is because she is a powerful woman, which can confuse the audience as typically, men are the killers. This shows the woman's power/strength, causing her to seem more terrifying. Consequently, this will cause a wider audience as a woman is the killer. This makes women watch the production and appeals to men, also.

AS Evaluation- Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Thriller Comparison

Overall, I believe that I have created a successful thriller sequence. This is because, I incoproated conventional micro elements for example, costume within mise en scene. before doing so, I also researched into all of these elements, and how they were added to other successful thriller films. Lastly, I made sure that my sequence appealed to my tagert audience by adding these elemtns and researching other films. The use of my unique narrative also added to this, as the audience are engaged to this and my unique characters added.

I believe that the micro element used that best shows my creativity is the use of mise en scene. This is firstly because of make up and costume. The wedding dress highlighted the bride/killer's importance within the sequence. This showed that she was once innocent. The fact she murders victims in this costume, further highlights her deteriorating mental state. Her make up and hair is also messed up, showing her negative emotions and the fact she is broken.

Setting is another aspect of mise en scene. Within my sequence, the main setting is the dark secluded room. I believe this is creative as the bride's negative outlook makes the audience engage with her character. She is shut off from the rest of civilisation, which causes her negative mind set to be shown explicitly. Aswell as this, another element of mise en scene is lighting. Low key lighting was used alongside this setting. The darker lighting caused suspense as the audience were unaware of what would happen next, causing them to worry more. The dark lighting also showed the bride's mindset and negative emotions, causing the audience to engage with her further. This type of lighting is conventionally used in thriller productions to cause suspense and makes the audience fear for the worst.

The bride's body language/facial expressions are highlighted all throughout. When she is sat in the room, she seems miserable and pained as she reflects on the negative events that unfolded around her. This causes the audience to sympathise with her on some level. Her body language when she murders victims contrasts to this. She appears strong and menacing, showing that she strives for revenge and she enjoys killing these people. From this element, her character appears more sinister. She frightens the audience as she has the power to make them feel for her and against her.

An influence of mine was the film 'Orphan'. This film is popular and is conventional within the thriller genre. This is an influence of mine as the storyline and characters are unique and contains conventional micro elements that help make the film a success. 

The narrative is based around an orphan that appears to be a innocent, young girl. She is fostered by a new, welcoming family. However, she isn't as she seems and is actually and older woman in a child's body. As can be seen, the narrative is extremely unique. I believe the successfulness of this film is because of the unique narrative. This influenced me as I made my storyline more unique, wanting to appeal to a wider audience. 

The orphan is an extremely unsuspecting killer as she is a female child. This causes her to become more sinister as she tricks the audience as she is believed to be something she isn't. The fact that she is so brutal, also makes the audience feel sympathy towards the family/victims for being so open and unaware. This overall influenced me, as I wanted the characters added to my thriller to be unique. The audience should engage with the characters and feel certain emotions towards them such as fear or sympathy. I made my killer a woman, as she is unsuspecting yet surprising and sinister. She too tricks the audience, causing them to feel tense and uneasy.

Audience feedback

Feedback from an audience is extremely important when having made a production. This is because, it needs to be known to you that your film will make a profit and that your chosen target audience would watch the film. Lastly, you'd need to be assured that your chosen micro elements applied to films succeeded and appealed to the target audience.

I recieved feedback for my sequence by forming a focus group. From this, people within the group discussed the positive points that they saw within my sequence. I also gained constructive critisism which can help me improve, next time. Overall, this source of feedback helped as the group was made up of my chosen target audience of 15+. Aswell as this, I formed a questionnaire that I gave people aged 15+ to fill out. This was extremely helpful as I gained more knowledge as to what my audience liked about my sequence. I asked questions such as 'do you think this sequence contains a high element of shock/surprise/suspense?' and I asked 'would you want to see more of this, if made into a full film?' I found questions like this important, as I could view if my production would make a profit and appeal to it's audience. Feedback such as this is considered benefitial for production companies and the industry. This is because, this feedback allows the company to see if their production would sell at the box office. Further from this, large industries that produce these films, make blockbusters, which expands their target audience as film success can spread worldwide.

Here are three positive comments that I recieved:
1) 'Good use of costume, it makes the opening more appealing to watch.'
This can be refering to the wedding dress used. I thought the costume used was extremely important and helped show the character of the bride in her destressed state.
2) 'Full of suspense. The music helps this.'
I analysed many different music pieces before choosing the appropriate non diegetic sound to play within scenes high in suspense. Suspense helps draw the audience in, as they start to engage with the narrative.
3) 'Unique plot, haven't seen this kind of sequence before.'
I aimed to create a narrative that was extremely unique. Although I added conventional micro elements for example, low key lighting, I didn't want to use the traditional thriller sequence. This is because, it has been viewed by many audiences, and another conventional narrative can disencourage them.

I also recieved constructive comments from this feedback:
1) 'Could add more shock rather than just suspense'
Although I believe that shocking frames and ideas are added, I could have added more of the shock/surprise element to engage the audience futher.
2) 'Less dialogue, more sound effects.'
In the beginning, I believed that dialogue was needed for the frames to make sense to the audience. However from feedback like this, I found that clearer frames and more sound could do this equally.
3) 'End scene was confusing'
The sequence ended with the groom and his knew partner sat on the sofa. Luckily, this is only the opening sequence therefore, this would be explained in the rest of the film.

Overall, I believe that I have followed the aims of the brief. This is because my opening sequence contains micro elements that are seen within other successful thriller films. Therefore, I used influences to create a strong opening sequence that would appeal to my chosen target audience. I have made a post containing my final sequence here. From this, it can be seen that the brief was followed as I created a two minute thriller secrets, containing researched conventional micro elements such as cinematography that would appeal to my target audience.

AS Thriller Evaluation

My initial brief was to create a two minute opening sequence that contained codes and conventions typical of the thriller genre. This had to be created in groups. My group members were Amber-Louise Reed Johnson and Jazz Chrystie and myself. Within the production, group members had to be allocated to certain roles. Consequently, filming and editing would run smoothly and quickly as everybody in the group would have an assigned job. Firstly, Jazz was made the producer as he purchased all props needed and did not have a huge acting role therefore, he could supervise the making of the sequence. Jazz was also the mise en scene coordinator. Mise en scene is a huge contributer within the media industry and the making of a production. Amber was appointed the director of photography and filmed the whole sequence, this is because she was skilled with the equipment that would be used, for example the camera. Amber was also the sound producer and was responsible for sounds used within the sequence. She was succesful and filled this role well as she found conventional sounds before hand, and knew how to apply the. Lastly, Amber was the editor as she had experience using Final Cut Pro X therefore, she could edit the final sequence successfully. Within the sequence, we needed more than one actor therefore, the whole group had an acting part in some point of the sequence. I believe that this was a positive aspect as we could act as the characters we had created, therefore we knew first hand want we wanted the character to be like. From this also, the audience would engage with more believable characters.

My roles included directing, main acting and screen play writing. Firstly, I was in charge of directing other actors and the technical crew therefore, I had to be available to instruct others to make filming run smoothly and quickly. The role of a screen play writer is extremely important and I was appointed this role as I was the main creator of the narrative and storyboard. The opening sequence was made from detailed notes I made on each frame. From this, I learned how to make a well planned sequence and my team skills strengthened. I also learned how to instruct others rather than to be instructed. Overall, my group worked well together as we all knew our specific jobs that had to be done within these allocated roles. To improve next time and strenthen our group skills, we could have planned the filming schedule more sufficiently and should have made sure that the days were appropriate for everybody. However, because of well planned frames, there were no arguments.